Why isn't RewriteCond %{HTTPS} returning the correct value?

4
votes

I am working on a Drupal site for which the client has requested that we remove the 'www.' from the URL. This is super easy and I've done it before; I simply comment out the suggested lines in the Drupal-generated .htaccess file like so:

# To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
# uncomment the following:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Those of you familiar with Drupal's .htaccess will know that the environment variable protossl is set towards the top of the file like so:

# Set "protossl" to "s" if we were accessed via https://.  This is used later
# if you enable "www." stripping or enforcement, in order to ensure that
# you don't bounce between http and https.
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl:s]

This is working perfectly on my local environment, but when I deployed the change to the production site it breaks. www.mysite.com redirects to mysite.com as expected, but https://www.mysite.com also redirects to mysite.com instead of https://mysite.com. It seems that the %{HTTPS} variable is returning 'off' even when it should be 'on'.

I can go directly to https://mysite.com and it works perfectly. The site's Apache access logs show 'https://' where I expect it to be, as do all of my HTTP requests. The site is running on a RackSpace server using a load balancer (only one node in the balancer). The SSL certificate is on the RackSpace load balancer. I have tried the following steps and none have had any results:

  • Replace RewriteCond with RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} on [NC]
  • Replace RewriteCond with RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
  • Multiple variations and combinations of the above RewriteCond's
  • Added $conf['https'] = TRUE; to settings.php

This is driving my coworkers and I crazy. Can anyone help?

1
.htaccessmod-rewritedrupalhttpsno-www
If you are behind a proxy then try: %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} variable. - anubhava
That did the trick! Thank you very much good sir. - TWGerard
You're welcome, glad it worked. - anubhava

1 Answers

5
votes

anubhava has saved the day! The solution was to use the %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} variable just as he suggested. I updated the protocol detection bit of my .htaccess to look like this:

# Set "protossl" to "s" if we were accessed via https://.  This is used later
# if you enable "www." stripping or enforcement, in order to ensure that
# you don't bounce between http and https.
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl]
# The default proto detection provided by Drupal does not work on our
# production server because it sits behind a load-balancing server.
# This additional RewriteCond makes sure we can detect the forwarded proto
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} https [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl:s]

I'm gonna call this a crunchwrap supreme, 'cause it is good to go!